Working from your home helps since you only interact with people via social media or the telephone.

As with anything in life there are divergent paths and there is not a single path for everyone.

All paths lead to pros and cons that you must determine for yourself, and if you are willing to accept the responsibility for your choosing your path.

I offer this caveat, never spend more than your budget will allow and never go into debt to fund your freelancing business.

How comfortable and transparent are you working from home?

By transparent, I don’t mean giving out your personal information. I mean is being your authentic self.

Clients don’t purchase from people they don’t know or don’t trust.

Honing your interpersonal skills is a must to build trust through building relationships with visitors to your blog, website, and social media platforms.

It is how and how often you interact with others in your circle of followers and those following you. Are you helpful, do you answer questions, how often you blog, do you offer education, do you offer value. Why should someone interact with you if you don’t interact with them and other in your chosen niche.

Each individual must create their own schedule of interacting on social media and how much they are willing to interact online,

What does it take to become a freelancer?

I have written about this in posts on this blog. One post is The 7 P’s of Freelance Writing. It was written back some time ago.

In that post, I mentioned certain items that apply to general freelancing as well.

These items are:

Performance –

Presentation –

Professionalism –

Polish –

Personal Contact –

Persistence –

Patience –

I could write about what these words mean to me but if you want to be a freelancer, you will have to find out what these words mean to you in your business, because freelancing is a business, and it you fail to treat it like a business your business is destined to fail.

Call Yourself a Freelancer and They Will Beat a Path to Your Door

First, forget about that happening, especially if you’re an introvert.

Second, do not quit your day job until you are making enough to allow you to do so. Each person must make that determination on just how much money they need to live the lifestyle they wish to continue living or compromise living on.

Third, if you are in the United States, think about what the federal, state, and local government might think about you doing business from home if clients come to you.

Fourth, if you work for someone or a company that has a benefits package, are you willing to give that up and start paying your own way by freelancing full-time.

Fifth, consider the fact that as a freelancer you will be competing against other freelancers from around the world and some probably willing to work cheaper than you.

As a newbie freelancer, you have no portfolio, no reputation, and face it; no experience working with clients and understanding their needs.

Start slowly and build your credibility, reputation, brand and what is unique about what you have to offer potential clients so they choose you over another freelancer that has been doing it longer than you.

What is your Plan?

Have you thought about the following?

Do you even have a plan on how to proceed?

Have you written a business Plan?

How are you going to finance your freelancing?

Where are you going to work from?

Are you planning on establishing a separate business bank account?

What are you going to name your business?

Have you thought about a domain name for your website?

Are you going to create a blog?

If you are on social media, are going o create a separate business social media account.

Are you going to have a business phone and business cell phone separate from personal ones?

What about selling via a separate voice mail than your home voice mail?

Does this give you pause for thought?

I trust it does because there are many things to think about when calling yourself a freelancer and being willing to do whatever and however long it takes to become a freelancer making a living.

Many of the household names in online marketing have been at it for years. It is possible to take years to become an overnight success.

Any business that is still around started as a start-up and worked hard to become a success.

Have Questions about Running a Business

If you are in the United States, there are sources of information online at the following:

Are You a Magpie, always looking for the next shiny object, the male Magpie is always on the look for the next shiny object to entice a mate with the number of shiny objects.

Many entrepreneurs feel that the more they can learn or listen to the newest webinar, buy the newest book, listen to the newest podcast, spend untold dollars on anything or everything from the next guru they hear about.

Everyone feels inadequate at some point, whether newbie or seasoned. No one can live their life in their comfort zone, especially when starting out.

Most people have heard of “Chicken Soup for the Soul” by Jack Canfield. He received one-hundred and forty-four rejections of “Chicken Soup for the Soul” before finally being published.

How do you think he felt? Maybe inadequate? Was his idea a good one or a bad one? Was he chasing shiny objects? No he kept moving forward.

When is it time to walk the walk?

How many books do you need to read? How may programs do you need to buy? How many gurus do you need to listen to before you pull up your adult pants and get started doing?

If you’re afraid of failure, guess what. If you take personal responsibility for the outcome of your actions, you can learn more by failing than you can by success.

Failure is part of life. Do you think Thomas Edison was successful with every invention on the first try? No, but he did learn what didn’t work. The same goes for freelancers, entrepreneurs, and businesses. Each one must find what works for them.

There is, no one size fits all, if there were, every business would be the same to some degree.

You are an individual, you learn at a pace and mode that may be different from the next person. What you need to learn is what works for you and what makes you different from others.

There are myriad businesses, entrepreneurs, and freelancers to choose from. What makes you different from the crowd, why should someone trust you with their project? This is what you need to learn about yourself and exploit your differences to build a trusting environment with your clients. Clients will not work with someone they don’t trust or have some form of relationship with.

Human beings have strengths and weaknesses. The entrepreneur’s job is to identify them and use them to their advantage.

Stop reading and spending your cash on the next shiny object and start doing the work needed to become a success, whatever that means for you. Realize that what you consider success may not be what someone else considers success. Only compare yourself to you, never someone else.

Anxiety, Diabetes Type 2, Gout, Hypercholesterolemia, Meniere’s Disease, Neuropathy, Osteoarthritis, Osteopenia, Pernicious Anemia, and Supraventricular Tachycardia. I have a small pharmacy in my home because of these conditions.

The week of November 15, 2015 was not a good one for me. This is not an excuse for not keeping up with reading and learning about how to increase traffic and marketing my services online. It just takes longer.

On Wednesday November 15, 2015, my wife and I needed to run some errands. While out of the house, many physical manifestations began to arise. Their toll felt for days afterward.

I am grateful to be able to work from home with no supervisor hovering over me, wondering why I’m not busting hump on the latest project. I did have some problems with supervisors at my job with PacBell, a contributing factor to my retiring early. I retired at age 58.

As age crept up on me, so did other medical conditions. Cataract surgery for one. These are the “Golden years”.

If you are living with health issues

First, create a sick day plan.

The sick day plan should include working on some aspect of your business. Being under the weather doesn’t mean you give up. It only means you may have to rearrange your schedule.

Second, keeping up with clients.

If a time comes when you are not 100 percent, you need to contact your client and let them know, especially if any illness may adversely affect the timeline you’ve given them for their contracted project.

Looking like an amateur to your client is horrendous to your business and personal reputation by not keeping them up to date on their project.

Third, always keep as healthy as possible.

When working, you must consider making time for yourself. You must eat, exercise, and take mental health breaks to maintain optimal health. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle is important for you and your business. If you are not 100 percent, your business won’t be either.

Your health is more important than your business if you work from home as a freelancer or consultant.

I can attest to this from personal experience.

Consider creating a wellness program for optimal health that will allow you to run your home based business efficiently and effectively.

The first step in building your platform is to decide what your want your platform to say about who you are and what you have to offer.

Are you and author?

Do you have a product?

Are you a web designer?

Are you a copywriter?

Are you a publicist?

Are you a freelance writer?

Are you a marketer?

This is by no means a complete list of possibilities for platforms that showcase what you have to offer people who visit your online platform.

Consider how you will tell your story online. Is a website with a blog, a solo blog, and then what about social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and others best for getting your story online and in front of people to start creating relationships.

It’s hard to sell to people without them trusting you. You build trust through relationships and engagement with visitors to your platform.

Just like in life, it takes time to build relationships and trust. It takes patience and perseverance to make it online the right way. There are no shortcuts to building trust, you must prove your trust worthiness.

If you’re like me, long on ideas but short on cash, not wanting to go into debt to create your plat form, there are ways to create your platform using free sites.

You will have to choose which free platform resource(s) is right for you. Yes there is a learning curve since most will be Do-It-Yourself (DIY).

You’re probably thinking free means using the same templet as someone else, which is true, but it is about what you have to say on your platform that counts.

It is your content that will score your position on search engines and drive traffic to your platform if you are willing to put in the work required to get your platform into the online world call the Internet.

Your age or when you started doesn’t make a difference, you just need to start and work at it and learn even if you can afford to pay some one to build your platform for you. You should learn bout your platform even if you aren’t the one who built it. Learn some coding and learn about the host of your platform so you you can modify it if you have to.

Not knowing what’s going on in your platform can cause you problems with search engines.

Your content and frequency of fresh content is what rates with search engines and drives traffic with relevant content to what people are searching for.

How often you update your platform with fresh content is up to you but the more often.

While living in Osborne, Kansas, helped a High School writing prodigy with her stories after meeting her in an authors’ group and asked to help her.

Wrote a letter of recommendation for a young writer for a position at a local press

A local magazine, Osborne Joy contacted me for a short story to be included in an upcoming issue while living in Kansas.

The question remains, what have I accomplished.

I began earning money at the age of around nine and a half as a paperboy delivering the News Pilot.

Next was working at San Pedro Marine through High School into college

I spent from 1965 until 1971 as an ARMY Reservist working my way to E6 and acting First Sargent over two platoons of forty troops each in Psychological Warfare Company.

From September 1966 until December of 2003 worked from PacBell on everything from POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) to Fiber Optic equipment as the technology changed and updated.

Created a trouble shooting guide for M1C equipment

What have I accomplished or learned?

Over the years, I learned much, which a good deal is of no use since I retired from PacBell.

I have been blogging about writing and freelancing.

I share what I consider interesting items

I try to answer question that people online may have

I have been working on a manuscript “Taming the Freelance Market”.

I have stories and poems, written or started, and some still in my head.

I am a freelancer who because of finances must wear many hats while trying to learn marking and converting visitors to my blog and social media accounts despite a litany of medical conditions that require daily medications. I say this not for pity but as one ages things begin to happen from a medical perspective. For some, “the golden years” are more like trips to doctors, specialists, and the hospital.

I enjoy reading and love editing

When working DIY, getting clients is difficult when competing with others from around the world.

Following some of my own advice

It is time for me to change my daily routine and make more time for writing and devote less time to that which is a time waster like Email, social media, and complete some courses I have waiting for me.

It is finally time to inhibit the procrastination bug from invading my life and work on what makes me fulfilled. Back to learning, reading, and writing is the mantra I should be living.

It is time to cull things that are not as important as what I should be doing, writing because writers write. I do consider myself a writer, 2015 is the year I should prove it.

Since money for traditional publishing is nonexistent unless I win the LOTTO, I must work on getting my ducks in a row, dot all Is and cross all Ts to get my manuscript turned into a finished book.

If I want to write, I must prove that to myself by writing and finishing my first book while continuing to hone the craft into readable content for any potential readers.

I have seen Freelancers on different social sites asking about various places where they can find freelance jobs.

If you think freelancing will make you more income than your current job, think again, because there are no guarantees in freelancing, just as there are no guarantees in life. It is all about how hard you are willing to put forth the effort and determination.

These are only a few notification sites where you can bid on the posted jobs with no guarantee of obtaining work on any of these sites, which are only a small portion of available sites on the internet.

Would you buy something without a warranty? Then, why would you pay for only a chance at seeing posted jobs only to post a bid or offer your services to someone with no guarantee of a job.

It does not seem right to pay only for opportunities to bid without knowing you can actually get freelance work after paying just for a chance.

There are other productive ways of finding freelance jobs locally at first, which will help you build a portfolio and gain experience in your chosen freelance niche.

No matter how much you may hate it, do not be in a hurry to quit your day job, it pays the bills for now and a paycheck is guaranteed if you put in the time.

Think about this: More than 80 percent of freelancers have side jobs accord to The Freelancers Union. Did you think all freelancers made tons of money; well think again, the number of freelancers making self-sufficient income is small.

Take freelancing slowly; build your reputation, because YOU are your brand. Freelancing is a big business and you need to learn the business part of freelancing as well as what your specific freelance niche is all about, this takes time and a good deal of reading about your niche so you are educated in what it takes to be a successful freelancer in that niche.

The more you know the better equipped you will be to understand the clients pain points and be able to address them. If you cannot understand a client’s needs, how will you be able to handle their needs?

Working as a freelancer, I have found freelancing frustrating, depressive, and irritating to the point where I have thought of saying, “I quit!” This is when I need to walk away, regroup myself, and get back to learning more about marketing my services while working on any outstanding projects.

Most potential clients already have someone whom they trust offering the same services I do, so how do I find people willing to work with me, because of finances, there is less than a shoestring budget to work with. When living on a fixed income, there is never enough money to work with a mentor, purchase programs, travel expenses to conferences, lodging, food, and price of the conference ticket.

In hindsight, there are many things I would have done differently, age should not stop anyone wishing becoming an entrepreneur. Just do not quit your day job until freelancing will allow you to keep the lifestyle you are accustomed to.

Freelancers are independent contractors; you pay taxes, purchase insurance, need a space to work, pay for any licenses to run a business. Freelancers are entrepreneurs running a business, and the money is not yours, it belongs to the business and your business pays you a salary.

Freelancers need an accountant, or learn accounting to keep clear concise records in case of an IRS audit.

All entrepreneurs are liable for paying taxes, employee withholding, Medicare, sales tax, state taxes, business licenses, and possibly medical, dental, and vision insurance. This in itself can cause entrepreneurs more than their share of frustration.

Another thing that can cause freelancers ulcers is pricing their product or services to be competitive. When outsourcing, you will have to train your virtual employee to work the way you would.

While going through my email, a usual task, to see if there was anything of interest.

I received some offers and because of past experiences knew that the offers meant money.

I hate “noreply” emails, anyway, to date, only a couple of people understand the phrase “I don’t have the money” to mean exactly that.

As a soon to be septuagenarian, I along with many others living on a fixed income do not desire to go into debt on dubious offers of some potential income while wondering if they should eat or purchase their medications for the month. Personally, I have ten medications, but only get nine because the pharmacy is having trouble getting my B-12 injectable required every other week.

Are sellers of webinars, books, programs, online training …etc. not getting the point that not everyone has money for books, programs … etc., and when they say they do not have money; that is what they mean.

The sellers are loath to offer any information about any free information because it might cut into their profit instead of helping information seekers of their journey toward knowledge.

What sellers fail to realize it that by helping a knowledge seeker, the seeker may one day be able to afford the sellers program; How about that?

I have questions

When did the philosophy of paying it forward disappear?

Am I that old or delusional to believe in paying it forward?

Has society become about the one with no regard for others?

I refuse to believe that offering products of services at a reasonable price is still a good practice, and quality is what entrepreneurs and businesses should offer as a standard while also offering the best customer service possible, and believing what customers tell you.

While earning my PhD from the University of Hard Knocks and a DIY marketer for my services, I am a firm believer in answering any and all questions in a philosophy of paying it forward.

I have some work in progress that will educate and inform readers in an honest way about the subject of freelancing, and procrastination. It might seem hard to some, but life is hard if you are willing to dabble into the realm of entrepreneurship.

I do not believe in sugar coating reality. One reality is that it may take years to become an overnight success through long hours and hard work.

There are no short cuts in life, just as there are no short cuts to being an authentic person, which also takes hard work.

I started mine because I wanted to help entrepreneurs, writers, and freelancers. I started out knowing little about running a business, with little money to put into the business, and working on obtaining my PhD at The University of Hard Knocks.

I started mine because I wanted to help entrepreneurs, writers, and freelancers from starting out knowing little about running a business with little money to put into the business, and learning through the University of Hard Knocks.

It is my desire to help readers of this blog, and highlight my writing in case someone would hire me for writing, editing or reviewing.

Being a real person, posts on this blog may be scheduled for early in the day, they are written by one person, never curated, no PLR (Private Label Rights), no MRR (Master Resale Rights), only 100 percent original writing.

It is my desire that this blog starts conversations, start thinking about what blogs should offer, and may engage readers with the content. Perhaps hired for one or more of my services by a blog visitor, ask a question about the services or about writing, marketing or social media as I am a believer in paying it forward.

Why did you start a blog?

There are many reasons to start a blog.

Blog about books in progress

Blog about books you have read

Host virtual book tours

Post book reviews

Blog about public figures’ tours, appearances, entertainment … etc.

Blog about your products, new product release date, or your services

Blog about your books with links where to purchase them

Blog about writing to help new writers

Blog about SEO, Marketing, Social Media, Networking … etc.

A blog is about what you choose as your subject. A blog should engage, establish relationships, engage readers, help your readers, and offer information that educates the reader about your product or service, about the subject you choose as the base of your blog.

The blog headline should inform the reader what to expect to find on your blog. It must be relevant to searches performed by searchers on the Internet.